2016: Change your attitude, change your life

Like me, you’ve probably read all the positive 2016 new year messages on the Internet about how 2016 is going to be the best year ever, and it’s great to see all the ambition – I thrive on it.

But there are a few posts on Facebook from people I care about that concerned me, and this is for anyone who thinks that 2016 won’t bring them anything new.

You see, it’s not all that difficult to make this next year better than last year, all that’s needed is a few small changes. So if you’re glad to see the back of 2015, or if 2016 is just going to be another ‘shitty year’, or if you’re thinking it’s going to be the ‘same shit, different year’, I hope these notes will help you to change your life for the better.

What I’d really like you to get to grips with is that in order for things to change for you, you have to change. So if you don’t have any plans to change even just one thing about your life, how can you expect your life to change for the better?

You are in control, so take responsibility and own your life.

A change in your attitude will change your life

The only thing that you truly have control of is your attitude, and a change in your attitude will change your life. Trust me on this.

Your attitude is everything. It’s your philosophy, it determines how you react, it’s who you are at your core, it’s how people feel about you.

A change in attitude won’t change your life over night, but it will change the direction you are going in, which in turn will change your life over time.

You’re probably thinking “yeah, right Chris, that’s easy for you to say”, and it is. The hard part is making the changes and making the changes stick.

Which would you rather suffer? The pain of discipline or the pain of regret?

Keep in mind that I’m really no different than you – you have the same opportunity that I do, and also the same resistance that I have to making change. We’re all equal.

If you are looking for help, and you want things to change for you, your family, your life in general, then these notes will certainly help you. How do I know? Because they helped me.

It doesn’t matter if you are in business for yourself, if you are employed by someone else, or if you are unemployed – these notes apply to all.

It’s all about aiming to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday.

Guess what? These changes won’t cost you a single penny!

Create ideas

If you want your life to change for you, and you want to succeed, you need to be able to create ideas. With practice, this is something you will get better at.

This practice of idea generation will help you to:

develop a creative mind

develop a solution based focus

increase your value to people

create more value in your business and your job

be more ambitious

achieve more in your life and business

The great thing about creating new ideas is that you can’t make mistakes – you can think big, you can be completely ridiculous, and it doesn’t matter at the idea stage – but, it gets you thinking differently about everything.

Write down 10 ideas a day and watch how you change the way you approach problems in your life.

You can also give your ideas away to other people. Be helpful and expect nothing in return. People will like and value you for it.

Cost to you – £0

Learn something new every single day

Don’t put yourself under too much pressure here. Some examples: Listen to a podcast, read 10 pages from a book, read a few blog articles from your favourite thought leaders – just do anything to feed your mind with new ideas and knowledge. This small daily practice will compound over a long period of time.

Be teachable and open minded to new ideas.

Cost to you – £0

Stop complaining

Stop moaning and bitching. Stop talking about other people. Stop doing it in private, and certainly stop doing it in public, like on Facebook.
Just don’t do it.

Not only will people see you in a different light, but you will feel better too.

Study your own life instead of other peoples’.

In short, don’t be a dick and focus on yourself. 🙂

Cost to you – £0

Write daily

Again, don’t put yourself under too much pressure here. Start with 10 mins a day, just write down your thoughts and ideas from the day.

What went well?

What didn’t go so well?

What’s happening tomorrow?

What one thing do you want to achieve tomorrow?

What are you grateful for today?

Some people call this their daily journal. The benefit is found in reflection, gratitude and keeping track of your life so it doesn’t just simply pass you by.

Cost to you – £0

Get around the right people

I’ve spoken and written a lot about this in the past – it’s so important to get around the right people. Reduce the amount of time you spend with people that aren’t helping you change your life and increase the amount of time you spend around people that are helping you. This is a conscious decision that you have to make.

Find people that you can seek mentorship from – ideally real people that are alive, but you can also seek mentorship in books, videos, seminars, podcast, etc.

Note: be the person that other people want to be around and your life will change. People don’t hang out with miserable and negative people – so be fun and likeable. Enjoy your life.

Cost to you – £0

Think big & set goals

If you don’t have a dream, you’re dead. You need to have ambition in your life – something to work towards, something that you want to achieve.

Take some time out today to think about where you are going, what you want to do in your life, and the person you would like to become.

Think big – why not? You’ve only got one shot at life, so why should it be mediocre?

Write it all down – document your dreams and ambitions.

Be the best. Be awesome!

Cost to you – £0

Take action

Many people do nothing to improve their lives, and some people do a lot of personal development, but don’t take much action. What’s required is a bit of both. In fact, taking action IS personal development. You can learn far more about yourself from taking action than reading another book.

It’s really about getting the balance right – learn a little everyday, but spend most of your time actually creating stuff – take action, create tangibility. You could read 40 books in the next year, but if you don’t do anything with it then it doesn’t matter.

No one cares what book you’re reading. No one cares how many you’ve read. All that matters is that you are learning and doing something with your knowledge. Knowledge only becomes underst anding when you take action, knowledge only becomes powerful when you take action.

Execute on the ideas you’re passionate about.

There’s no better time than now.

Cost to you – £0

Is it time for a change…?

What’s the point of life if you aren’t trying to improve and get better? 2016 is truly set to be your best year ever, you just have to grab it with both h ands and own it.

No one started off being great at what they do, but in order to be great they did have to make a start.

You’ve got the same opportunity as almost everyone else, it’s up to you to take advantage of it.

We all have same amount of time in the day – how will you use it effectively to build the life you want?

You have to truly believe that you can live the life you want to – spend time with your ambitions and write them down.

Have a dream, have an ambition, be selfish about what YOU want – there’s nothing wrong with living a good life.